Explore the vast range of titles available.

It has been suggested that many forms of secondary lymphedema in humans are driven by a progressive loss of lymphatic pump function after an initial risk-inducing event. However, the link between pump failure and disease progression has remained elusive due to experimental challenges in the clinical setting and a lack of adequate animal models. Using a novel surgical model of lymphatic injury, we track the adaptation and functional decline of the lymphatic network in response to surgery. This model mimics the histological hallmarks of the typical mouse tail lymphedema model while leaving an intact collecting vessel for analysis of functional changes during disease progression. Lymphatic function in the intact collecting vessel negatively correlated with swelling, while a loss of pumping pressure generation remained even after resolution of swelling. By using this model to study the role of obesity in lymphedema development, we show that obesity exacerbates acquired lymphatic pump failure following lymphatic injury, suggesting one mechanism through which obesity may worsen lymphedema. This lymphatic injury model will allow for future studies investigating the molecular mechanisms leading to lymphedema development.

Network analytical metrics often seek to capture the structural dimension of social capital, but such data collections using traditional social research tools often suffer from biases like interviewer effects and are usually only suitable to study small groups of participants. Digital sources of social relations might offer great potential for facilitating such measures though, because they digitally store unprecedented amounts of relational data, free from the limitations associated with self-reported data. This study therefore compares individual node degrees collected through a contact diary (i.e., overall-social capital), and a counterpart extracted from digital footprint data from the social media network, Facebook (i.e., social media network-social capital). The findings suggest that researchers conducting empirical studies involving the concept thus should not ignore social media network-social capital as a practical alternative measure of overall-social capital; it provides a sound approximation but only after controlling for other influential factors. In particular, our results highlight that the usability of the digital social capital metric is conditional on the three-way interaction between the variables gender, age, and social media network-social capital. Thus, the evidence from our study, in turn, also intimates that individuals act heterogeneously in the digital sphere with respect to their networking behaviour.

Background Lymphedema is a common complication of breast cancer treatment that affects one in five breast cancer survivors, yet there is no reliable method to detect lymphedema in the subclinical range. The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility and reliability of using an infrared 3D scanning device (ISD) as a peri-operative limb volume measurement tool. Methods Fifteen patients were analyzed based on inclusion criteria. Peri-operative measurements were obtained using tape measure and an ISD. Volumes were calculated using a standard algorithm for tape measure and a custom algorithm for ISD measurements. Linear regression models were used to assess ISD and tape measurement volume and circumference correlation. One-way ANOVA was used to compare change in percent difference at set time points post-operatively (2–3 weeks, 4–6 weeks, and 7–12 weeks) for both ISD and tape measure. t tests for unequal variances with the Bonferroni correction were performed among these groups. Results There is a positive linear correlation ( R 2 = 0.8518) between absolute volume measurements by the ISD and tape measure. Analyses over 2–10 weeks post-operatively showed that the ISD was able to detect volume changes in both the unaffected and the affected arm. Furthermore, the affected arm tended to have a greater increase in volume in the majority of patients, indicating these patients could be at risk for lymphedema. Conclusions Technology utilizing infrared 3D scanners can reliably measure limb volume pre- and post-treatment similarly to tape measure in a small sample of patients. Further research using 3D scanning technology with a longer follow up is warranted.

Cephalopelvic disproportion (CPD)-related obstructed labor is accountable for 3-8% of the maternal deaths worldwide. The consequence of CPD-related obstructive labor in the absence of a Caesarian section (C/S) is often maternal or perinatal mortality or morbidity to the mother and/or the infant. Accurate and timely referral of at-risk mothers to health facilities where C/S is a delivery option could reduce maternal mortality in the developing world. The goal of this work was to develop and test the feasibility of a safe, low-cost, easy-to-use, portable tool, using a Microsoft Kinect 3D camera, to identify women at risk for obstructed labor due to CPD. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, 3D camera imaging, anthropometry and clinical pelvimetry were collected and analyzed from women 18-40 years of age, at gestational age ≥36+0 weeks with previous C/S due to CPD (n = 43), previous uncomplicated vaginal deliveries (n = 96), and no previous obstetric history (n = 148) from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Novel and published CPD risk scores based on anthropometry, clinical pelvimetry, MRI, and Kinect measurements were compared. Significant differences were observed in most anthropometry, clinical pelvimetry, MRI and Kinect measurements between women delivering via CPD-related C/S versus those delivering vaginally. The area under the receiver-operator curve from novel CPD risk scores base on MRI-, Kinect-, and anthropometric-features outperformed novel CPD risk scores based on clinical pelvimetry and previously published indices for CPD risk calculated from these data; e.g., pelvic inlet area, height, and fetal-pelvic index. This work demonstrates the feasibility of a 3D camera-based platform for assessing CPD risk as a novel, safe, scalable approach to better predict risk of CPD in Ethiopia and warrants the need for further blinded, prospective studies to refine and validate the proposed CPD risk scores, which are required before this method can be applied clinically.

Objective: To outline three main categories of nasoalveolar molding complications, describe their etiologies and manifestations, and prescribe preventive and palliative therapy for their proper management. Estimates of the incidence of each complication also are provided. Materials and Methods: Data were collected retrospectively from the charts of 27 patients with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate treated by the first author (D.L.-B.) at the University of Puerto Rico (n  =  12) and the Medical College of Georgia (n  =  15). Confidence intervals for the true incidence of each complication were calculated using exact methods based on the binomial distribution. A significance level of .05 was used for all statistical tests. Results: Of the soft and hard tissue complications considered, only one (tissue irritation) had an estimated incidence greater than 10%. Compliance issues were of greater concern, with an estimated incidence of 30% for broken appointments and an estimated incidence of 26% for removal of the nasoalveolar molding appliance by the tongue. Conclusions: Although benefits outnumber the complications, it is important to address all complications in order to prevent any deleterious outcomes.

The objective of this article is to review current empirical literature on social capital, a term that broadly refers to the valuable resources derived from interpersonal relations in social networks. A better understanding of this concept can advance research in many domains, particularly as they relate to topics affected by social ties and their embedded resources, such as knowledge sharing and Web 2.0. We examined quantitative studies from top-ranked business-oriented and sociological journals published prior to 2016 that proposed an operationalization of social capital. Based on these criteria, we identified 88 peer-reviewed studies that examine the effect of social capital in different areas. Our review confirms the concept’s basic tenet and shows that researchers from different domains link social capital to a variety of business-oriented and sociological phenomena. However, our state-of-the-art analysis also identifies certain shortcomings of recent social capital research. Thus, the article concludes with a discussion of the challenges inherent to this research stream and proposes some avenues for future growth. In addition, this article can serve a go-to resource for operationalizing social capital that considers the concept’s multidimensionality and provides valuable guidance to scholars looking to conduct their own research in this area.

In 1969, Robert P. Newman and Dale R. Newman wrote Evidence, a book intended, according to its authors \"for students of exposition, discussion, persuasion, and argument who must buttress their speeches or essays with evidence.\"1 In fact, it is much more. Far from merely a writing guide, it is a sophisticated and subtle treatise on the uses and abuses of evidence in policymaking and the standards by which that evidence should be evaluated. It is replete with detailed examples from major policy controversies, primarily of the 1960s, but also earlier. Of course, the Vietnam War looms large. Yet the reader will discover on revisiting the book or on reading it for the first time its continuing relevance to contemporary policymaking and the political discourse that justifies it. The book's lasting usefulness stems not just or even primarily from the eerie similarities of some of the policy issues Newman and Newman discuss with those of the current day but from the timelessness of the standards of evidence they present and, especially, from the thoroughness and intelligence of their application.

Tallal hypothesized that reading disabled children have a domain-general deficit in processing rapidly occurring auditory stimuli that degrades speech perception, thereby limiting phonologic awareness and thus reading acquisition. She predicted they would be disproportionately affected by rapidly presented auditory stimuli. In this study, one hundred 7- to 11-year-old children with learning impairment (LI) and 243 non-learning impaired (NLI) children were evaluated on a two-tone auditory discrimination paradigm. LI committed more errors, but effects of timing were comparable. The same result was obtained for a subsample of good and poor readers. Task performance predicted reading, spelling, and calculation. Neural processes underlying perception of speech and other auditory stimuli may be less effective in poor readers; however, contrary to Tallal's hypothesis, rate may not be specifically affected.

The evaluation of beekeeping management practices (BMPs) is important for beekeepers worldwide because their choice affects health and survival of managed honeybee ( A. mellifera L.) colonies and touches ethical and economic questions. This study focusses on queen excluders, a common hive addition in contemporary beekeeping. Its impacts are controversially discussed but have not been studied scientifically yet. Within a 4-year participatory on-farm experiment, we assessed the effects on colony dynamics in 64 hives in 8 apiaries during one season in Germany using the Liebefeld estimation method. We found no significant deviation for parameters of colony dynamics between hives managed with and without queen excluders. A qualitative decision-making tool (Pugh decision matrix) facilitated concept selection only for specific beekeepers.

Photometric passbands are usually characterised through laboratory measurements and once in operations they are refined with true observations of reference sources with known spectral energy distribution. This paper revises the methods to determine those passbands and discusses the limitations encountered. The passbands are not fully constrained by the reference sources used and the method presented here allows to evaluate which is the constrained and the unconstrained component of the passband.